limitations

You know, if my child had no legs, people would not come up to me and extol the virtues of running and how beneficial it would be to him and question why I won't let him do this normal lovely activity, why I won't let him be normal.  They would see that my child could not do this normal thing and that it wasn't because I wouldn't let him, but because there is some intrinsic limitation built into the way the child is made.

Yet, I get this all the time from well-meaning relatives: when are you going to let him got to school? when are you going to let him do this and that? wouldn't it be fun for him if he could . . . ?  But no, he doesn't get to to all that because his mean old mother arbitrarily says 'no'.


What if he doesn't get to do all that because he unravels when we try things like that? What if he doesn't get to do that because he is opportunistically sneaky and we have to keep an eye on him all the time? What if he doesn't get to do all that because even one week of sleep-away camp set us back about 9 months to a year in attachment? What if the reason his life is limited and not normal is not actually my fault?  What if I am constantly trying to expand his world and running into the clear message that he can't handle it yet?




What if I am grieving all the things my child doesn't get to do and be and experience and you walk up and extol the virtues of running to me?







Yes, some of my relatives read this, and yes, I am responding to something you said or did.  Be at peace though; I know your one suggestion was well-intended and seemed reasonable to you.  And if your suggestion was the only one, I wouldn't be reacting, but I am carrying a large basket of friendly suggestions that are all clearly oblivious to the fact that all those good things you want for our son, we want too.  All those desires that you spend 20 minutes on? We spend hours on.  We weep over them.  We grieve.


We are not, however, the source of his limitations.  We are the repair squad.  It's a yucky job and we are doing our best.  You can help us by stopping with the assumptions that if we would just get out of his way he could be a typical kid.  We are doing all we can to help him get to be a happy kid, but there are a lot of obstacles -- most of which you know nothing about -- none of which did we put into place.